Saddington Fair
Saturday, May 6, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire
My mother rang me this morning and asked if I would give her driving lessons. I laughed for quite a long time. Eventually, she said, "Yes or no?" I said, "It would be disastrous, you can't even tell left from right." I asked her if she had requested that her new husband teach her. She said, "Ivan reckons that there are enough cars on the road already." I advised her to use public transport. She said that there was no public transport to the crėme de la crėme of boot-fairs at Saddington in the middle of the Leicestershire countryside.
"Why won't Ivan take you to Saddington?" I asked.
"Ivan gets nervous seeing so many cash transactions taking place between untrained amateurs," she said.
Ivan used to be the chief accountant at a dairy until the cold winds of change knocked the milk bottles off the steps of time and replaced them with the cardboard carton in the supermarket chill cabinet.
My mother was still blathering on: "The last time we went to a boot-fair, Ivan completely ruined my pleasure by moaning about the lack of regulations. He said that both the buyers and the sellers were anarchists, and should be made to pay tax and VAT. He has even asked Pandora to bring in an act of parliament: The Boot Fair Regulation Act.
When she mentioned that there were Abba LPs and memorabilia for sale, I offered to take her one Sunday.
Monday, May 8
My father continues to deteriorate in hospital. He has now contracted a virus (the one caused by privatised cleaning) and is in an isolation ward. His new wife, Tania, is in almost permanent attendance. She is taking advantage of his weakened state to read Great Literature at him. She is currently halfway through Moby Dick. When she went out to go to the toilet, I asked my father how he was enjoying Melville's extraordinary allegorical seafaring tales. "I am not enjoying it," he whined " I don't like fishing."
I noticed that Tania had placed a copy of Silas Marner: The Weaver Of Raveloe on the bedside trolley. It was obviously to be the next literary read-aloud treat. I wondered if I should mention to her that my father has a violent antipathy to books, films and TV dramas about children. (Something had once happened to him in a cinema during the showing of a Shirley Temple film — I don't know what but a gabardine mac was involved).
Tania would be on firmer ground if she stuck to Raymond Chandler or the earlier Dick Francis.
Friday, May 12
Pamela Pigg called round to say that she's found me a small town house overlooking a canal basin in Leicester. The present occupant, a Mrs Wormington, is an OAP. She is in hospital, but is nil by mouth, so Pamela reckons I can probably move in in a couple of weeks. I said, "Is she nil by mouth so as to free up the country's housing stock?"
Pamela said, "She is occupying a three-bedroom house and she is 97-years-old."
I said, "Pamela, I don't want Mrs Wormington killed so that I can enjoy watching the narrow boats pass by my living-room window." I asked which hospital Mrs Wormington was in. She told me that it was the same one as my father, Pankhurst Ward — which was sort of appropriate. Though Mrs Pankhurst chose to be nil by mouth.
Sunday, May 14
Mrs Wormington is nil by mouth because she has had a stroke and can't swallow properly. She has no family or friends: "They've all died off, lad," she told me. I used a cotton bud dipped in water to moisten her mouth. "I don't like to bother the nurses," she croaked.
Are pensioners to be my albatross? I can already feel her liver-spotted hand around my neck.
Hard to swallow
Wednesday, May 17, 2000, Ashby-de-la-Zouch
After a visit to my father, who has been urged by Tania to sue the hospital for neglect and loss of dentures, I went to Pankhurst Ward to see Mrs Wormington. She is still nil by mouth, though there is now some doubt as to her swallowing ability.
I was there when a young doctor, in jeans and T-shirt (slogan: "Trust me, I'm a journalist") bellowed, "We've asked Mrs Ng, the ear, nose and throat consultant to have a look at you, Mrs Wormington." I asked if this meant that Mrs Wormington could drink a cup of tea. "Not yet. We don't want to risk her choking to death," she said. "I shall die if I don't have a cup of tea soon," rasped Mrs Wormington. The doctor hurried off down the ward. I followed her. "When will the consultant next be on the ward?" I said. "Mrs Ng's next ward round is on Friday afternoon," she said.
When the tea trolley came round, I placed myself between it and Mrs Wormington, but she heard the wheels. "I've drank eight cups of tea a day for 92 years," she choked. The poor woman ought by right be admitted to the Priory. She is doing the equivalent of coming off crack.
When I went into the sluice room to find a vase for the carnations I'd bought, I heard a registrar at the nurses station whining about the «bed-blockers». When I said goodbye to Mrs Wormington, she said, "Ta-ra lad, God bless, see you tomorrow." I'm trapped! Trapped!
Another pensioner has broken into my life and is holding me to ransom.
Friday, May 19
Glenn asked why the washing line was full of wincey-ette nighties and big knickers. I explained, and he said, "I'm relieved, Dad, I thought you was on the turn."
Saturday, May 20
I woke with a jolt at 3am just as Leo Blair was being born (am I psychically connected to Cherie?). I went downstairs to discover that Pamela Pigg had shoved a note through the letterbox at some time during the night. On pink Filofax paper, she had written:
Dear Adrian,
I went out on a hen night with the girls from the homeless unit tonight. Phillipa, the one with the teeth, is getting 'married' to Mary, the one with the nose, on Wednesday morning. We went to Humperdink's, the new nightclub in Melton Mowbray. I felt terribly out of place. It was full of teenage girls wearing very small garments. I felt horribly frumpy in my Principles polka-dot outfit. It's the last time I follow the advice of the Leicester Mercury's fashion correspondent.
However, the point is, Adrian, the DJ played our song, “My Heart Will Go On.” I had to leave the dancefloor. Do you remember your emotional state when we came out of the multiplex, after seeing Titanic? It was the first time I had seen a grown man cry. I felt very privileged. I miss you, Adrian. Can we try again? It was stupid of me to have flown into a temper over a silly book.
Love, forever, Pammy.
PS: Mary and Phillipa say you are welcome to come to the wedding. I am to be their best person. No presents, but donations to the Fawcett Society appreciated.
PPS: I've had disturbing thoughts of yielding myself to you.
Talk about blackmail! If I attend the lesbian wedding with her, she will «yield» to me, will she? Does she imagine that I am so sexually frustrated that I would spend another minute in the company of a woman who became hysterical when she discovered a copy of Philip Larkin's Diaries on my bookshelf?
Wednesday, May 24
The wedding went off all right. I was the only man there. Even the registrar was a woman. Is this the beginning of the end for men? Pamela came back to Arthur Askey Way, but refused to «yield» to me when she saw Kingsley Amis's Letters on my bedside table and Mrs Wormington's knickers on the line.